Classroom Exercise

Ideas are not magical ponies. They don’t appear instantly. Writers know they have to look for ideas. The more they look for them, the more ideas they have. The key with ideas is not to focus on the...

Characters come alive in the smallest details: a favourite food, a favourite type of music, a fear of spiders, an allergy to plums, a scar from a fall at two years of age, a love of reality...

Today’s students are visual learners. They look at screens all day long, it makes sense that they are going to be grabbed by a picture instead of something they hear or read. So why not bring the...

Jessica Stafford of Owensboro Middle School was in the middle of rehearsing Hoodie for the KTA middle school festival. She generously shared this “Positive and Negative Post-it Exercise” she used...

The start of a new year holds many promises. I will make a resolution! I will change my life! I will….do something for two weeks and then go back to my old way of doing things. Because there’s so...

Location, location, location , a scene can totally be driven by where it’s set. Picture prompts serve as a great starting point. To that end, write a scene between two characters that use the...

Sound is a powerful sense. Many objects and actions are clearly identified by the sounds they make. Sound also triggers powerful memories. When I hear a screen door slam, I am instantly brought...

If you have a Shakespeare unit or play study planned for your class, start with this exercise; it’s a great doorway to engaging with the Bard. The key to Shakespeare is to get students up and...

Ideas can come from anything and everything. But it’s always a good idea to give students a jumping off point. Pictures are a great jumping off point for creative writing. Here, we’re looking at a...

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Ideas can come from anything and everything. But it’s always a good idea to give students a jumping off point. Pictures are a great jumping off point for creative writing. Today we’re looking at...

One of the keys to Classroom Management is getting students to work well together. Group work is tricky if students don’t know one another. Why should I share something with this guy who doesn’t...

One of the keys to Classroom Management is getting students to work well together. Group work is tricky if students don’t know one another. Why should I share something with this guy who doesn’t...

One of the keys to Classroom Management is getting students to work well together. Group work is tricky if students don’t know each other. Why should I share something with this guy who doesn’t say...

If you’re looking for a great cross-curricular activity for your drama classroom, delve into verbatim theatre. Verbatim: in exactly the same words, word for word Verbatim theatre uses a process in...

Who am I? It’s a question not a lot of people ask. Who am I? What defines me? Effective artistic expression begins with you. If you’re going to write a well detailed character, you should know...

This exercise works for both playwrights and actors. It can be done by playwright working on a new play, or by an actor in rehearsal. It’s very simple, but also illuminating. It will encourage you...

I received the trailer below for a production of Tuna Fish Eulogy and I think it’s great. It’s basically a commercial for the show, but also gives a clear indication of the style of the production,...